Simpson: Beware of the locker room nudist

Friday

Mar 2, 2018 at 3:24 AM

Dave Simpson / Opinion columnist

It sounds crazy, but I’m noticing some people at exercise who are almost as irritating as the locker room nudists.

I’ve written about the locker room nudists before, guys who stride around in their all together, sometimes wearing just a pair of shower clogs, as if athlete’s foot is their only concern in the world. They come around the corner from the showers naked as jaybirds, curiously oblivious to the other guys frantically looking away. You just know that this odd duck would walk out the door naked and drive home that way if given the chance.

At my former gym, an old guy used to make a point of standing at the sinks, buck naked, while he shaved, and all the other guys were thinking, “Geez, pal, give us a break, will ya?” For him, it was oddly invigorating. For the rest of us, deeply disturbing. You couldn’t un-see what you had seen.

(There’s a show on TV called “Naked and Afraid,” where they drop naked people out in the woods, then blur out their controversial parts. These people never get frisky with each other, because they’re too busy swatting mosquitoes, and I’m always thinking, “Put you clothes back on, you knuckleheads, and you’ll be less afraid.”)

Looking away is an important skill at exercise these days, as many of the young women there - who don’t seem to need to exercise - wear skin-tight, caboose-enhancing outfits that no doubt attract the attention of reckless young red-blooded males. I think there’s some kind of mating ritual going on between the young exercisers, who are always in the majority. Old guys like me have to keep a copy of The Wall Street Journal handy, and turn to the editorial page when tempted to notice people around us. Horse blinders would come in handy, because there are things you just can’t be caught noticing these days.

Just about everyone at exercise these days has a cell phone, and some people spend most of their time peering into it, as if it was a form of exercise. On the leg-lift machine, which is popular, people will do a couple of lifts, then peer into their phones for five minutes, tying up the machine. Who are these people talking to? What are they looking at that is so endlessly interesting?

Can’t they go stand in the corner and peer into their phones, and let someone else use the leg lift machine?

One day a young person was sitting between me and another old guy on the exercise bikes, grabbing her cell phone every few moments to check for vastly important incoming messages, and simultaneously playing Michael Jackson hits without benefit of ear phones. So we all got to listen to Michael, who always gave me the creeps, whooping and wailing it up, dancing, no doubt grabbing himself like a particularly brazen locker room nudist.

For 15 long minutes, the other old guy and I listened to Michael, too polite to tell the young girl that earphones would make the music even better and give the rest of us a break. You don’t want to be seen as some kind of old goat who complains a lot at exercise.

I doubt she would want to listen, however, to 15 minutes of George Jones singing “He Stopped Loving Her Today” on my cell phone, if I could figure out how to make my cell phone do that.

Which I can’t.

You see T-shirts that say, “Pain is temporary. The gain is permanent!” and “Just Do It.” These people have not talked to their orthopedic surgeon about this pain being temporary theory. Someday they will learn about rotator cuffs.

My favorite T-shirt, spotted at exercise a couple years ago on a guy who obviously was in need of exercise, said, “Eat More Spam!” It was refreshing. You don’t see much self-deprecation at the gym.

Going to exercise is a mine field these days, with things you can’t notice, things you don’t want to notice, and just about everyone peering into their ding-dong cell phones, as if it would give them six-pack abs.

And when you spot a locker room nudist, whatever you do, look away.

Contact Dave Simpson at davesimpson145@hotmail.com.

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